Thursday, February 3, 2011

It is the Starbucks pumpkin scone and I blame the lovely and talented Alexandra Meikleham for this addiction. She introduced me to this tasty treat and contributed to the downfall of this blogger's waistline (I'm joking... ish)

I made a few small adjustments to the recipe, and let me tell you, my loved ones are seriously going to have to con me into a 'documentary' about scones and then tell me how my scone addiction has affected their lives negatively. Also they're going to need to get one of those slings that they transport whales in to get me out of the house one day.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk together pumpkin, milk, and eggs.
Cut butter into cubes then add it to the dry ingredients. Use a pastry knife or a fork to combine butter with dry ingredients. Continue mixing until no chunks of butter are visible. You can also use a food processor: Pulse butter into dry ingredients until it is the texture of cornmeal or coarse sand. Or until your arm gets tired (if not using a food processor) or until you get fed up.

Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients, then form the dough into a ball. Pat out dough onto a lightly floured surface and form it into a 1 inch thick rectangle that is about 9 inches long and 3 inches wide. Use a large knife or a pizza wheel to slice the dough twice through the width, making three equal portions. Cut those three slices diagonally so that you have 6 triangular slices of dough. That's what the original recipe said, and it's fine, but if you're like me and need at least 1 scone per day, you might want to make them half the size so that you get 12 smaller ones.

Bake for 14 to 16 minutes on a baking sheet that has been lightly oiled. Scones should begin to turn light brown. If you're making 12 smaller ones, start with 9 minutes and then put them in longer if they aren't done yet -- every oven is different...

While scones cool, prepare plain glaze by combining ingredients in a medium bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed (actually a fork works too). Mix until smooth. When scones are cool, use a brush to paint a coating of the glaze over the top of each scone.

As that white glaze firms up, prepare spiced icing by combining ingredients in another medium bowl with an electric mixer (or fork) on medium speed (doesn't your fork have a medium speed? *scoff*). Drizzle this thicker icing over each scone and allow the icing to dry before serving (at least 1 hour). A squirt bottle works great for this, or you can drizzle with a whisk.

And if you can't wait for the scones to cool, skip the plain glaze, just make the spiced one and dip your scones into the bowl as you scarf down the whole batch.
(what? no one else does this?)

And I'll end this post with a picture of the creature -- because I need to prove that there really is a kid, and that I didn't just totally slack on the blog posts because I'm a lazy bum. There she is with Miss Olive - the patron saint of this blog (Saint Olive? that'll be the day)